a16z crypto hires AI-payments specialist from Dragonfly

Andreessen Horowitz's crypto arm has added Robbie Petersen as an investment partner. Petersen, previously a junior partner at Dragonfly, announced the move on June 10 via his X account.

Petersen's background runs through research and venture capital. He started at Delphi Digital, then moved to Dragonfly, where he focused on agentic commerce and AI-native payments. Agentic commerce refers to autonomous AI agents that transact on users' behalf. AI-native payments build financial rails for machine-to-machine transactions. He holds a degree from McGill.

The hire signals where a16z sees the next allocation cycle. Petersen's specialty sits at the intersection of AI and crypto -- a space the firm has gradually increased exposure to, through earlier bets on decentralized compute and tokenized AI models. Adding a dedicated partner for the vertical suggests the firm expects deal flow to accelerate rather than stay experimental.

No specific portfolio changes or new funds have been disclosed. Petersen is now listed on a16z crypto's team page.